


Taking Matters into Your Own Hands

by Starlightify



Series: repairing the world [2]
Category: DCU
Genre: ADHD, Autism, Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Parent-Child Relationship, Trans Character, an assload of penis jokes, neurodivergent character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 11:36:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8160811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlightify/pseuds/Starlightify
Summary: Dick chooses a name.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Repairing the World, aka 'Everyone is trans'.
> 
> This takes place a few months after Bruce took Dick on as his legal ward. Dick was already aware of his transness, but hadn't picked a name yet. And then he realized. The perfect choice. It was as plain as the... well, you get the picture.

“Do you really,” Bruce says, steepling his fingers in _that way_ he has, “want to choose your name out of spite?”

Dick considers this question for about two seconds. “You dress up as a bat and go out to fight crime and corruption every night because your parents’ murder was never really investigated,” he says. “You can’t lecture me about making major life decisions out of spite.”

Bruce sighs. It’s a long, drawn-out sigh that really demonstrates the lung capacity required to be Batman. “You have me there,” he admits.

“It’s not like it’s going to say ‘Dick’ on my driver’s license,” Dick continues, because ‘you have me there’ does not mean ‘I approve your name choice and will file the paperwork in the morning.’ “And it’s not like it’s not a nickname other people choose to go by.”

“Less and less, these days,” Bruce says, one eyebrow barely raised. Try harder, that eyebrow says. Wow me with your rhetorical abilities, that eyebrow says.

Dick is going to knock that eyebrow’s socks off. “So it’s a little old-fashioned, and people are going to make fun of me for it. But jeez, Bruce, if I just didn’t do things I wanted to do because people would make fun of me for it, I’d never do anything.”

“That is a fair point,” Bruce says. But the eyebrow stays up.

“And it’s not just spite,” Dick says, because that eyebrow compels him to keep talking, keep going, make words happen, “it’s also the absolutely incredible pun potential.”

“There we go.”

He can’t go back now. “Come _on_ , Bruce, I couldn’t pass up the chance to be a gay trans boy named ‘Dick’.”

“You couldn’t, could you.”

“I most definitely could not,” Dick says. “That’s what I would regret forever.” Not changing his name to ‘Dick’ because one of his worst bullies used to call him ‘dickless’. Not changing his name to ‘Dick’ and being out as a trans boy and opening himself up to the inevitable easy ridicule. Not being the kind of person who would pick his name based partially on the joke potential.

“Hm.” Bruce leans back. The eyebrow goes down. “Well. Far be it for me to tell you how to live your life.”

“You tell me how to live my life all the time,” Dick feels compelled to point out. “You make me get eight hours of sleep every day even though you only get five, you tell me that banana fritters aren’t a breakfast food-”

“Banana fritters are thirty percent oil and seventy percent sugar.”

“That is objectively scientifically false.”

“It is true in spirit.”

“ _That doesn’t count._ ” Hold on. “Wait, does that mean yes?”

“You will legally be Richard Grayson within the month,” Bruce says, and Dick pumps his fist.

“ _Yes_.” Then Dick asks, purely for the reaction potential, “Can I change my middle name to Willie?”

“ _Absolutely_ not.”

~x~

“Hi, I’m Dick Grayson,” Dick tells the ornate wood mirror in his bedroom. He feels a thrill run through him, mouse feet up and down his extremities. He’s practiced saying a lot of names in this mirror. He’s practiced saying _this_ name in this mirror. It feels different, somehow, knowing it’s really happening, it’s really going onto his legal documents. “Dick Grayson, nice to meet’cha.” He puffs out his chest. “Dick Grayson, defender of the people!”

Spite and joke potential aside, it’s a really good name. He stands on one leg and says “Master acrobat Dick Grayson!” Hops onto the other leg. “Boy wonder Dick Grayson!” Back handsprings onto the bed and starts bouncing. “Dick Grayson! Dick Grayson!” he chants to the rhythm of his bounces.

There’s a knock at the door. Dick bounces once more, lets the momentum carry him halfway across the room, sticks the landing, and answers the door with a breathless "Hi."

It’s Bruce.

Dick opens the door wider.

It’s Bruce and Alfred.

They have a _cake_.

“This is something of a tradition,” Bruce says stiffly.

Dick’s eyes widen.

He has only heard Bruce talk this way a few times. This is Bruce’s ‘giving a genuine and heartfelt speech’ voice. It has none of the smoothness of his speeches as Billionaire Philanthropist Bruce Wayne. It’s really awkward and wooden. And unspeakably endearing. Dick wonders if it’s weird that he thinks his guardian, who is also Batman, is cute.

“Insofar as an event that’s only happened two times - three times now, can be considered a ritual,” Bruce continues. “A sort of. Rebirthday, as it were.”

Dick can feel tears welling up. He hopes he can at least make it halfway through the speech before he starts bawling.

“My parents began it when I chose my name,” Bruce says.

Nope, there go the tears.

“They chose me choosing a name,” Bruce’s pauses between words get more pronounced, and Dick sniffles, rubs his eyes, and motions him to continue. Alfred continues to hold the cake and cast a quietly fond look at the back of Bruce’s head. “As the time to celebrate, because. Well. I was too young to begin hormones, they wanted to celebrate something, and coming out is a lifelong and often irritating process, so that wouldn’t work as a singular recurring date of celebration. So. Happy rebirthday, Dick Grayson.”

Alfred presents the cake. Dick could see it was chocolate frosted, before, but now Alfred tilts it so he can see the words written in delicate blue icing, surrounded by little birds.

_It’s a boy!_

Dick’s throwing himself at Bruce before he can really register that he’s moving. Bruce is all muscle and scar tissue and bones built up through microfractures, and he’s very solid, but after a moment of surprised, frozen stillness, he brings his arms up and returns the hug.

Dick is totally crying.

He thinks this is a perfectly appropriate situation for tears to happen.

“I’m gonna hug you too, as soon as the cake is somewhere safe,” Dick tells Alfred, voice muffled in Bruce’s warm sweater.

“Of course, Master Dick,” Alfred says, voice perfectly prim, and Dick almost inhales Bruce’s sweater and chokes on it laughing.


End file.
